


Until Next Time

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Accepting Injury To Save Another, Accepting Torture to Protect a Loved One, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: They get captured a lot in this line of work.Illya usually gets the short end of the stick, too. But he'd rather take a little torture than see Napoleon undergo the same, and he knows if he makes it out of something alive, he'll always have his partner to lean on.Napoleon still really wishes he wouldn't.





	Until Next Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tish/gifts).



> An extra treat fic, because I haven't played in this sandbox in years, but I love how unfailingly loyal these boys are to each other, and how they make their banter such a big part of handling what life throws at them, trading quips in the aftermath as well as in the moment. The way they play off each other with words is a reflection of how they work together in action.

    “Take me.” Illya says, and it’s a worse blow than any their captors could have landed.

 

    “No--” Napoleon struggles forward, for all the good it does-- one of the two THRUSH goons in the room has a hand on the back of his chair, the other has Illya’s. When Illya says ‘take me’, he knows what the main trio sees. They see overconfidence, inexperience. They see how young he looks, how small, how fragile. And they hear his own protest and assume it’s true, that Illya can be broken.

 

    Napoleon isn’t afraid because he thinks Illya can be broken. He’s afraid because he knows he can’t be.

 

    “Daddy, I _wanted_ Mr. Solo.” Katrina, the Verrin’s daughter, stamps her foot. On a four year old, it _might_ be cute, on a fourteen year old, _potentially_ acceptable. On a young lady of twenty-four, there’s something off-putting in the childish petulance displayed.

 

    John and Elizabeth Verrin had never been near the top of the list, where THRUSH’s most dangerous operatives were concerned. It was only recently that they’d begun climbing that ladder rapidly, and Katrina seems to be instrumental in their success.

 

    “You can play with Mr. Solo _after_ you’ve broken his associate.” John Verrin sighs, the way an ordinary father might say something about dessert after dinner, or not getting a pony.

 

    “Give my apologies to Mr. Waverly.” Illya meets Napoleon’s eyes, as both of the two goons move to pick up the chair he’s bound to. _Get out_ , he doesn’t say, _get free_ , and certainly not _take the information back before you think of me_ , but… how can Napoleon expect him to want otherwise, and how can he expect Napoleon to think of anything else?

 

    The timing is critical. Napoleon knows. Napoleon knows a lot of things, but he can’t… he can’t stand the _look_ on Katrina’s face as her eyes rake him over, and he can stand it even less when she turns her gaze to Illya and it goes cold. The smile she gives him could chill even the most seasoned agent. Illya doesn’t even spare her a glance. He watches Napoleon as if committing him to memory. As if he hasn’t already. With his memory, he can’t have helped it by now.

 

    The three of them sit there, with the goons and Katrina gone. Napoleon knows her reputation as a torturer. The agents they did recover… well, those agents are still recovering. The ones they didn’t recover, not alive, those still tell enough of a story.

 

    John glances at his watch every so often, otherwise absorbed in his newspaper. Elizabeth takes up her needlepoint. Napoleon struggles to work his way free.

 

    The manacles are too tight. He could dislocate his left thumb and he still wouldn’t be able to simply pull free. The problem with relying on blood to make for a slippery escape is that enough of it to do the job is more than he wants to lose before he even gets into his first fight-- too little and it’s only going to dry tacky and make the job harder. Too much doesn’t bear thinking about. And the Verrins… so sure he won’t get free.

 

    “I’m surprised we aren’t hearing the screams yet.” John Verrin says mildly.

 

    “You underestimate my partner.”

   

    “Hm. Perhaps.”

 

    He keeps checking his watch. She keeps at her needlepoint.

 

    The first scream reaches them. Verrin looks at his watch and hums, impressed. His wife doesn’t even seem to notice.

 

    The third scream reaches down into Napoleon’s chest and wrenches his heart, louder and wilder than the first two, stronger than the fourth and fifth that follow. Illya… _His_ Illya. If he can only hold on, if he can just be one of the lucky ones, if he can just be okay until Napoleon can figure out how to get free-- without getting killed himself-- and get to him. Normally when he finds himself shackled to a chair alone, he’s waiting on Illya to come for him, but this time… This time, it’s clear from the fading screams that Illya needs him more than ever.

 

    “I doubt we’ll see Mister Kuryakin again.” Verrin adds. Mispronounces the name. “Trina never does like it when she can’t have her favorite…”

 

    “We’ll have to deal with Mister Solo, dear. You know Trina likes that type _too much_. You’ll have to dispose of him and say he was escaping, before she finishes with the other one…”

 

    “Suppose you’re right.”

 

    “You’d better get to it, I haven’t heard any screaming in a minute.”

 

    “In a minute.” Verrin says. The lights flicker.

 

    “Now.” His wife says. “That’ll be the Russian gone, if she’s done _that_ to the electricity.”

 

    The manacles won’t budge. The chair, however, is breakable. When Verrin stands, with a long-suffering sigh, Napoleon does as well, smashing it, and taking the arm of it, still manacled to his arm, to Verrin’s face.

 

    Elizabeth Verrin screams, dropping her needlepoint. She scrambles for a pair of scissors left sitting on the end table. Napoleon recovers his gun from her husband, knocking them both out.

 

    _Illya_. Maybe…

 

    It hurts too much to hope and it hurts too much to lose hope. He exists in a terrible limbo as he moves through the house, as he takes out the handful of goons. He finds Katrina’s playroom, finds Illya in chains hanging limp from the ceiling, in the center of the room, Katrina’s back to him as she puts away the various implements of torture she’d been using.

 

    “If that’s you, Joe, tell Daddy to please change the fu--”

 

    It’s as far as she gets before Napoleon shoots her in the back.

 

    “Okay, please…” He whispers, moving to get the keys to the manacles, to get Illya down. He can’t tell for too long a moment if he’s breathing, it’s so shallow. When he finally gets him down, gets a hand in front of his mouth to feel for his breath, he could _weep_ when it ghosts over his fingers. “That’s it, come on… I’ve got you now, I’ve got you.”

 

    They didn’t get his communicator. He can call in their location, they’ll be picked up, the Verrins and their henchmen taken in… in the meantime, he carries Illya out of the playroom, back to the family’s TV room, where there’s a couch he can lay him out on while he searches for a first aid kit.

 

    It’s bad, but Illya’s had… well, not worse. He’s never found him in this condition. He can’t lay him on his back or his front, has to carefully balance him on his side, moving couch cushions around to prop him up where he doesn’t have obvious injuries to aggravate.

 

    “Hang on, tovarisch.” Napoleon murmurs, lips brushing Illya’s temple, the edge of a bruise. “Solnishko, Illya, stay with me…”

 

    He does what he can with what he can find, until they’re picked up. He stays by Illya’s side until physically removed, to give his report to Waverly in the corridor outside UNCLE medical. As soon as the doctors are done, he’s back with Illya. There holding his hand, there to be the first person to see those beautiful blue eyes when he wakes. And when he does...

 

    “Hey there, partner.” Napoleon smiles.

 

    “Did--” Illya starts, swallows hard.

 

    “Did I get the information out? Yes. Did I rescue my partner?” He brushes the hair back from Illya’s forehead. “Also yes.”

 

    “A man of… many talents.”

 

    “Captured two out of three Verrins and about five henchmen.”

 

    “Which… which one… got away?”

 

    “No one got away.” Napoleon says, and Illya’s hand comes up to take his. “Next time, it’s my turn, yeah?”

 

    “Mm… you always want… the pretty girls to tie _you_ up… is that it?” He cracks a smile.

 

    “Illya…”

 

    “This is the job.”

 

    “I know. But it can’t be you every time.” He brings Illya’s hand to his lips. “It can’t be you every time.”

 

    “Just… when they like you too much.”

 

    “If you could limit yourself to being tortured only by people who find me handsome and charming-- No, no, that’s too many people.”

 

    “I am _constantly_ tortured by people finding you handsome and charming.”

 

    Napoleon laughs. “Oh, you have your admirers.”

 

    “Tortured by them, too.” Illya mutters darkly, though his smile returns when Napoleon kisses his hand again.

 

    “Oh, I can think of one who won’t torture you. Good looking, charming, quick-thinking, highly skilled…”

 

    “Modest?”

 

    “No, but you can’t have everything.” He winks. “Illya… come stay with me when you get out of medical.”

 

    “I can take care of myself.”

 

    “Come with me anyway. Not just to recover. To live.”

 

    “To live?”

 

    “To live.” He nods, and kisses Illya’s hand once more.

 

    “If I let you take care of me… how will it be?” Illya asks, soft and as close to dreamy as Napoleon’s ever heard him. Which isn’t very close, really, but you have to be able to read Illya. Like trying to welcome a particularly prickly pussycat into your home.

 

    And like with the cat, the best tactic has always been to set out food and be patient.

 

    “Cook for you, for a start. Aunt Amy’s chicken soup? Spaghetti carbonara?”

 

    “Hm… tempting…” His eyes drift closed. “I will… consider it.”

 

    “Potatoes.” Napoleon says, and one eye opens again. “With butter. Sour cream. Dill? And you know right around the corner from my building, there’s that little bakery… those pastries you like. Brown bread still hot by the time it gets home. And I’ve got your favorite tea in my cupboard...”

 

    “I’ll move in with you.” Illya groans.

 

    “Oh, but I haven’t even promised you a sponge bath yet. And just think… silk sheets, soft pillows… you can needle me about the decadence of the West every night as we drift off to sleep together, every morning when you wake up at my side.”

 

    Illya’s on his way back down into sleep, and after his ordeal he needs it, but the smile speaks for itself.

 

    He doesn’t budge from Illya’s side as he sleeps, steps in to do as much as he can when it comes to Illya’s care in medical-- something the medical team allows, in their case. It’s not so much a question of how partners get to be with each other, in their case, as it is a question of how poorly Illya handles receiving medical care. With Napoleon, he may still grump, but he allows it. He might not enjoy being on the receiving end of anything medical, but he still enjoys Napoleon’s attention, and all the more if it comes with food.

 

    He could take care of him… he could take care of him after every one of these missions-gone-wrong, after every time he’s tied up and tortured, he could take him home and do that for him. Illya never wants to let the world see how it affects him, but he’s let Napoleon in. He could take care of him now. Make room on his shelves for Illya’s books, find a place for his record collection, give up half his closet, he has room, he can make room. Put up Illya’s framed poster in the kitchen, the couple of photograph prints he has… where? The dining room? It should be the dining room, he thinks, they’ll look best there, and Illya will have his own favorite art to look at when they cook together and eat together.

 

    Maybe put one of his pictures up in the bathroom, so that after missions, he can draw him a hot bath to soak in, in the big tub Illya always calls a terrible luxury, and yet always seems loath to leave once he gets in it… Put his record player in the bedroom. His bed’s high enough to store all of Illya’s crates of records underneath. Put on some of his slowest jazz and lay him down, offer a massage or just…

 

    Just look after him as he puts himself together again. Just promise to be with him not only in the field but every step of the way. It’s what they both need.

   

    Napoleon is ready to give it to them.


End file.
